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Favorite Bowl Turning Video

Wyatt Holm

Wyatt Holm

Joined
Apr 30, 2008
Messages
230
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6
Location
Southern Utah
What is your favorite bowl turning video? I would like to see what videos people like and why.
Wyatt
 
Two Ways to Make a Bowl with Stuart Batty and Mike Mahoney
... because it shows that there is more than one "right" way to turn a bowl.
 
I have both those videos. I should say that "Turned Bowls Made Easy" was a great video the first time I watched it. But since then I have bought videos from Mike Mahoney. His video "From The Tree To The Table" is my favorite. The main thing I can say about Bill's video that I don't like is what he calls a sheer scrape, I call that a "scrape" when I turn the outside of a bowl I use what I call a sheer scrape (what Bill calls vertical sheer scrape). And on the inside of the bowl I use two gouges and push cut. The first gouge is just a 3/8 with a swept back grind, then I use a 1/2 ground straight across at an angle about 50 degrees.
 
Get "Bowl Basics: A Workshop With Mike Mahoney." It's a great video. Very professional production. Lots of good information - drying green bowls, power sanding, tool grind and design, finishes, chucks, tool steels and gallery. Think you will like it. - John
 
Wyatt Holm said:
The main thing I can say about Bill's video that I don't like is what he calls a sheer scrape, I call that a "scrape" when I turn the outside of a bowl I use what I call a sheer scrape (what Bill calls vertical sheer scrape).
Click to expand...

Last year in North Carolina I was working at the regional symposium down there for Vega lathes. At the one lunch break, I spied Dick Sing sitting a table away from me eating lunch. I have a lot of respect for Dick, and was eager to meet him, so I resolved to go over as soon as I was done eating. He finished up before I did, and the next thing I knew, he was standing right in front of me! 😱 I put down my sandwich, wiped off my hands, and rose to shake his hand. He said to me, "I just found out who you are!"

"You know who I am!?!"

"I've seen your video. It was very good. Of course, you're using all the wrong terminology. But we are all talking about the same thing!" 😀

I told him I had to use special words to stand out, since all turners had to develop their own schtick. We had a good laugh and talked for a little while before going our separate ways.

I don't normally post in threads where I or my videos are being discussed, but I thought you all might get a kick out of this story. I did, and it was an honor to meet Dick in person. And to all of you who mentioned my video, thank you very much. I cannot say how much it means to me. But it means a lot.
 
regional symposium

Bill Grumbine

Last year in North Carolina I was working at the regional symposium
Click to expand...

viedos are great, but i really enjoy the woodturning gatherings, weekend or one day affairs are great 😀
 
Bill,
I'll second your motion that Dick Sing is a great guy. In my area Dick is a popular demostrator when ever a hardwood supplier or tools shop is having an open house. So I get to see his schitck a few times per year. He is one of the best in that trade show style demo switching effortlessly from project to project knocking out something different every 15 or 20 minutes. This thread is about videos but Dick's project oriented books are excellent.

I heard last month at a local Hardwood Suppliers annual open house that Dick had his knees replaced so he wasn't available for the event. I hope he is recovering well.

Frank
 
Every bowl turning DVD out there has something to offer. Grumbine's and Mahoney's are definately at the top of the list. After, finally, watching Ellsworth's signature gouge video/DVD and bowl DVD- I'd put them in there as well. When it comes to bowls, there are definately many ways to get the job done.
 
I am inspired by Robin Cook. I won't build a spring pole lathe, but it is interesting. The thing that gets me is the sould of the metal slicing so cleanly through the wood. Those are SHARP tools.
robo hippy
 
Bill,
No offense intended, but I think you can improve a bit on techniques you use on the inside of a bowl. If you would like to borrow my DVD of Mahoney you are welcome to.
Email me if you are interested.
Wyatt
turner.wyatt@gmail.com
 
Wyatt Holm said:
Bill,
No offense intended, but I think you can improve a bit on techniques you use on the inside of a bowl. If you would like to borrow my DVD of Mahoney you are welcome to.
Email me if you are interested.
Wyatt
turner.wyatt@gmail.com
Click to expand...

No offense taken Wyatt. That is one problem with a video. The things that you see are carved in stone, so to speak. And anyone who is working at this is growing in their skill and ability as they go. I am not the same turner I was four years ago. It is always a goal of mine to keep learning and improving. But I will also say that I get very good results with the cuts I show in that first video most of the time. There are some things you can't see, like the way I roll the gouge almost straight up as it comes into the center of the bowl. And I have never shown - in a video anyway - what I call the dangerous cut, running the gouge down along the inside of the bowl cutting with the left hand flute. 😱 I get people telling me they are afraid to try some of the stuff I do show, so this one would have bowls going into orbit left and right for a lot of folks trying it on their own for the first time. I know it happened that way for me. 😀

In all my demos and classes, I emphasize that the weakest point of performance of the side ground gouge is at the bottom of the bowl. There are some ways to overcome that, one of them being a steeply ground gouge like you use. Another exciting cut is taking a forged spindle gouge and laying it over on its side to take that final pass. The surface is like glass when I finish with that cut. I have used these and other techniques as well, but usually I can get away with the one I used in the video the rest of the time. Maybe one of these days we can get together and trade some techniques with one another.
 
Bill Grumbine said:
- what I call the dangerous cut, running the gouge down along the inside of the bowl cutting with the left hand flute.
Click to expand...

The inside shear cut (aka dangerous) is, in my opinion easy teach and learn in a workshop or class and difficult for most to learn from a video. One well known instructor we had at Maryland hall would not teach the cut to intermediate students. He felt it was too difficult to master.

I almost always teach the shear cut to beginning students. The "almost" I reserve for the occasional student that I have failed to teach to ride the bevel and hold the tool loosely.

Trent Bosch uses a gouge with a slight side grind on the left and an english grind on the right. right side ideal for shear cuts on the outside. left side ideal for shear cuts on the inside. results are a surface that can be sanded with 220.

happy turning,
Al
 
When doing a video on a subject as huge as bowl turning you have to narrow it down. I'm not sure I can count all the ways of doing the inside of a bowl. In my classes I teach only one way because most are very raw beginners and I don't want to snow them with too much info.
Several years ago at one of the symposiums Mark Baker of Woodturning magazine and I got into a discussion on all the different ways of turning the inside of a bowl. These included using a rough out gouge upside down and spindle gouge and many different grinds on the bowl gouge. It was fun but you obviously couldn't and probably shouldn't show all these methods to a beginner.
 
John,

You hit on a key element in teaching beginners.
Don't tell them too much!
My simplistic understanding is that adult learning takes place in two steps
1. new stuff goes into temporary memory
2 over time it moves to long term memory.
when temporary memory is filled the learning stops until it gets processed usually overnight.

Because of the limits in new learning folks learn 10 times as much in a 4 class as they do in a 1 day class. it is also why folks watching the same demo a year apart learn so much the second time.

I try to have at least 3 days in a beginning bowl class.
day 1 - its side-ground bowl gouge using bevel riding push cut and scraping
day 2 add shear scraping
day 3 shear cut is added to repertoire.

- Al
 
I've watched Bill G's videos so many times that I can lip sync them. They got me into bowl turning and have kept me there. I've watched a few of Richard Raffan's and, while they are good, the pace is simply to fast for someone of my skill level.
 
I have watched his videos so many time also. They used to be me favorite videos. That was until I got Mike Mahoney's.
 
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